


The Gunfighter and the Faerie

by rowdy_tanner



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen, Old West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 21:36:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12308283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowdy_tanner/pseuds/rowdy_tanner
Summary: Summary: For the first time Chris Larabee doubts the Vin Tanner he thought he knew so well . .





	The Gunfighter and the Faerie

# The Gunfighter and the Faerie

 

 **Disclaimer:** The boys are the property of MGM, Mirisch and Trilogy Entertainment. I do not own them or make money from them but do they really need all seven? Couldn't they spare me one or two? The one with long hair looks like he needs something to occupy him...

 **Characters:** Old West. Chris Larabee and Vin Tanner

 **Summary:** For the first time Chris Larabee doubts the Vin Tanner he thought he knew so well . . .

 by Rowdy Tanner 

* * *

 

 

 

> The tracker Vin Tanner was happy to ride out to the modest ranch with its owner, the gunfighter Chris Larabee. The two men from Four Corners had supplies and some small building materials with them. Larabee was eager to show Tanner the addition he had built on to the small cabin at the ranch. As they approached the cabin Larabee thrust his arm out preventing Tanner from riding in. Tension showed in every fiber of the blond gunfighter's body. Without hesitation the long haired tracker reined in Peso and waited to see what had spooked Larabee, not a man easily spooked.

> "I didn't leave the cabin door open. It was latched to keep out wild animals," stated Larabee his tone flat.

> "Yeah?"

> "Yeah."

> Dismounting cautiously both men walked up to the cabin guns drawn. Listening to the silence for a full minute before pushing the door open even wider.

> A scene of chaotic turmoil greeted them. Every item the cabin housed had been thrown about the small room. The place reeked of spilt whiskey. Even the ash from the stove covered the floor. Broken glass, ripped sacks of flour and beans. Slashed curtains hung forlornly from the smashed window. Pages torn from a book rustled in the dust-filled air.

> "Not wild critters," decided Tanner.

> "No," agreed Larabee.

> "Systematic," added Tanner.

> Larabee glanced over his shoulder to see if the voluble gambler, Ezra Standish, had joined them but only the tracker stood there looking proud to have found a use for his new "modern" word. One probably picked up from Ezra or Mary Travis. Larabee shook his head at the influence those two were having on the unschooled tracker. He wondered if they had any notion of how much more dangerous they were making the tracker? Hell, the man was deadly enough without any formal education! Shrugging off his own feeling of pride in the tracker's accomplishments Larabee returned to the matter in hand.

> "Yep."

> "Like ta help ya sweep up, Cowboy." Tanner held up the sweeping brush. Every bristle had been pulled from the broom head and its handle snapped in two.

> "Hell," muttered Larabee.

> Tanner wandered back outside and several minutes later Larabee heard laughter. The gunfighter strode outside. Whatever the tracker found so amusing better be fuckin' hilarious, thought Larabee.

> "What?" demanded Larabee.

> "Ya built yer shack in the wrong place, Cowboy," drawled the tracker.

> "It's where it always was," argued the increasingly pissed-off gunfighter.

> "Extra room ain't," answered the amused tracker.

> "So?"

> "Ya built it in the road."

> "Road? What road?"

> "This'n here."

> "Tanner!"

> "See?" the tracker asked crouching down and pointing at the grass.

> Larabee looked down at a blade of grass that was identical to any other blade of grass. Dry and yellowing true enough but no dryer or yellower than any other. The tracker's old slouch hat must be leaking, he'd clearly got too much sun on their journey from Four Corners.

> "No. Grass is grass."

> "Road," insisted Tanner, chewing thoughtfully on a wisp of the grass under discussion.

> "Tanner, there is no road."

> Then the tracker dropped the bombshell that convinced the gunfighter that his best friend was indeed a shingle short of a roof.

> "Fairy road."

> "Fairies? FUCKIN' FAIRIES?" It was too much. Larabee was going to shoot that grinning tracker and he wouldn't be fussy where he aimed the bullet.

> "Yep," said an unconcerned Tanner, ignorant of how near he was to a bullet in the ass.

> Forcing himself to calm down Larabee tried again to extract some sense from the tracker. After all they had been good friends since they had experienced that unique moment of connection, the coup de foudre that first day in Four Corners and had fought back to back in more than one gun battle. "A fairy road? What's a fairy road?"

> "Road fer fairies," replied the ever infuriating tracker, looking askance at Larabee as if the gunfighter was the one losing his marbles.

> "Fairies with wings?" asked Larabee, hopelessly attempting to grasp at some fragment of normality and failing.

> "What? Naw."

> "There are different kinds of fairies?" tried Larabee, wondering if the tracker would come back to town with him and agree to see the town healer, Nathan Jackson.

> "Yep."

> "So what kind would this one be exactly?" asked the gunslinger softly because God forbid there would be more than one fluttering around in the tracker's addled brain.

> "Real 'un."

> "Without wings?"

> "Move real fast like, guess that's why ya thought they got wings," mused the tracker. "A blur in the corner of yer eye."

> "I see," said the gunfighter, although he clearly didn't by far.

> "Could be one but most like ta be a clan of 'em," explained the tracker patiently.

> Larabee's confused brain suddenly made a spectacular leap. "You think the fairies damaged my belongings?"

> "Yep," sighed Vin, unable to understand why his best friend was so slow on the uptake.

> "Why?"

> "'Cos of the road. Ya built on it."

> Larabee took a deep breath. "I built on a fairy road and this has annoyed them?"

> The tracker didn't think that question even merited a reply. Wasn't it obvious?

> "I see," said Larabee, only he didn't. Had Vin hit his head today? Had that ornery mule Vin insisted was a horse called Peso kicked the tracker in the head again perhaps?

> "Mebbe jus' one. Ya best hope others in the clan ain't found out what ya done yet or ya'll have a world of trouble on yer shoulders."

> "Trouble?"

> "Big trouble."

> "From a bunch of tiny flying things?"

> Tanner shook his head. "Ain't flying things I told ya jus' move from place ta place faster than a candle flicker. Real fairies ain't tiny, mebbe a mite shorter than JD an' real slender. Some gotten pointy ears, finely shaped fingers an' long silky hair."

> "Pointy ears?"

> "Yep."

> "I'm going to clean the place up now." Larabee had decided to call a halt to this maddening conversation. "Can you bring me some water from the river? Someone has tipped over the water butt."

> "Fairies," nodded Tanner, ambling off in the direction of the river.

> After putting the cabin to rights a sweaty Chris stepped through the door, latched it and sat down. Leaning his back against the wooden cabin wall he gazed up at the sun. Waiting for Tanner to return Larabee watched the sky turn from a delicate shell pink to a fiery red. Where the hell was that tracker? He saw a sudden flash of green in the corner of his right eye but the tracker still didn't appear.

> Dragging himself up onto his feet the gunfighter decided to go see if the tracker had fallen in the river. He stepped back inside the cabin to retrieve his black hat. Staring aghast at the scene of devastation he found inside the cabin. But how? Had he not sat outside all the while? Why hadn't he seen or at least heard something?

> "Cowboy?" rasped the tracker. "Thought ya said ya was cleanin' up in here?"

> "I did," snarled Chris.

> "Ain't much of a housekeeper," commented Tanner.

> "I cleaned up. It was tidy when I latched the door and stepped outside to wait for you. I don't know how this happened all over again. Do you? Say 'the fairies did it' again and I'll shoot you dead. I was here the whole time," puzzled Larabee. "Well? Who did it?"

> "Ya said I ain't ta say."

> "Vin?"

> "Chris?"

> "Read my lips, Tanner, fairies don't exist."

> "Ya reckon so?"

> "I know so."

> Tanner pointed to a spot over by the stove. Larabee squinted at the muddy footprints. Definitely too delicate to be his own. Perfect toes. Much too small to be Tanner's? Although he couldn't pretend to be an expert on Vin's feet. Except he did know that they were a ticklish subject.

> "Ain't mine," rasped Tanner, as if reading his friend's thoughts. "I walk heavier on one foot 'cos m' back pains me. Them prints match perfect. Ain't no water fairy. Them has webbed toes."

> "How come you are such a fount of knowledge?"

> "Mama."

> "Your mother? Texas is full of fairies?" chuckled Larabee.

> "She was born of the Fitzgerald bloodline. My maternal grandpa was a Victor Fitzgerald...White Knights...Green Knights...Black Knights of old...she told me all the ancient Irish stories 'bout how fairies figure in m' family tree...all about the Sidhe...Even knew an old Irish woman that said the fairies were out ta get her."

> "What happened to the old woman?"

> "They got her," shrugged the tracker.

> Larabee was left standing with his mouth gaping open as the distracted tracker wandered off toward the river again. He glowered at the emerging full moon and stomped back inside to clean up once more before it was too dark to see.

> That night both men slept on the porch. A restless Larabee determined to catch the intruder in the act. Tanner, insisting that it was a fruitless mission, fell into a deep sleep.

> A string of vitriolic curses woke Tanner up.

> "Cowboy?"

> "They did it again!"

> "Yep."

> Larabee sat on the porch his head in his hands. "All right what can I do?" he asked as if finally defeated.

> Not that he was of course. He was Christopher Adam Larabee, a big scary gunslinger dressed all in black with a fearsome reputation but he didn't see how he could skin his Colt Peacemaker and start blasting away at something small and fluttery he couldn't see.

> "Could buy yerself an iron lock."

> "A lock?"

> "Iron lock."

> "Why an iron lock?" puzzled Larabee.

> "Fairies can't abide iron."

> "That would keep them out?"

> "Most likely."

> "Then I'll get Yosemite to make me the biggest iron lock---"

> "Ya need ta be mindful of riling 'em up that bad."

> Larabee considered the tracker's words. "What will happen if they get riled up by the iron lock?"

> "No tellin' what mischief a fairy could inflict. Yer kin lose livestock, yer crops, have yer drinkin' water poisoned," shrugged the tracker.

> "Beaten by a bunch of fuckin' fairies!" growled Larabee.

> "Truth be told most likely jus' one fairy."

> "Okay! Okay! If it was you what would you do?" sighed the gunfighter.

> The tracker remained as still as a buckskin statue for several minutes.

> "Well?" snapped Larabee finally running out of patience.

> "Ya ain't gonna like it."

> "WHAT?" demanded Larabee.

> "Build another door."

> "What?"

> "Build another door in the wall opposite the door ya got awready."

> "Another door?"

> "Make 'em a way straight through."

> "ANOTHER DOOR?" shouted a furious Larabee.

> "Yep."

> "Another cabin door?"

> "Yep."

> The gunfighter drew his Peacemaker and plugged the upturned water butt full of bullet holes. "Guess I'm going to need a back door to the cabin at some point," he conceded.

> "An' a new water butt," agreed Tanner.

> M7 M7 M7 M7 M7 M7 M7

> Larabee opened the cabin door and surveyed the neat and tidy room inside.

> "No upset?" drawled Tanner.

> "Same as when we came out here last week, nothing moved at all. Everything just as we left it," reported Larabee. "Looks like the back door idea worked."

> "Told ya."

> "What's this?"

> Tanner looked over the gunfighter's shoulder at the large bright green leaf on the floor. "Leaf."

> "I can see it's a damn leaf, Tanner! What's that on it?"

> "Honeycombs."

> "Yes, I can see that for myself," snapped the exasperated gunfighter. "I mean what is it doing in my cabin?"

> "Ain't what ya said."

> "TANNER!"

> "Mebbe it's a fairy gift fer ya."

> "A thank you for putting in the extra door?"

> "Ya showed 'em yer respect fer the olden ways," the tracker nodded sagely.

> Larabee didn't have any intention of ever admitting it but he was strangely pleased by the sticky sweet acknowledgment of his efforts.

> "Fillin' m' canteen from the new water butt," grinned Tanner as he wandered off. "Water in it is right tasty now..."

> As he watched Tanner amble away Larabee heard soft laughter behind him. After glancing back over his shoulder and seeing no one he saw that Tanner had already filled his canteen, stoppered it and was starting to walk back toward him. Moves faster than a candle's flicker, thought Larabee.

> _"...fairies figure in m' family tree..."_ remembered Larabee as the slender Tanner pushed back his long silky hair with a finely formed hand to reveal his oddly-shaped ears. No, thought Larabee feeling foolish to even be contemplating it, Tanner is much too tall to be a fairy.

> The hair on the back of his neck rose and a soft breeze whispered in his ear.

> _Larabee, Mama were only a half-blood ..._

> **THE END**


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